


romance is a bluff

by searwrites (sears)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Firsts, M/M, Morning After, implied drunk sexual encounter, see notes for expansion on tags/warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-12 00:19:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7076701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sears/pseuds/searwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And it’s Yachi whose arm he assumes is hanging warm and heavy over his side, but then she’s much smaller and lighter than this. Her fingers are tapered and slender, but these are thicker, more crooked with bony knuckles. There’s a shift and a sleepy, somewhat pained groan coming from behind him, and the fact that he so suddenly <i>knows</i> this is not Yachi settles hot and low in his stomach, twisted with the empty hunger ache he always feels after a night of drinking.</p>
<p>--</p>
            </blockquote>





	romance is a bluff

**Author's Note:**

> this is a fragment of a much larger long distance college/uni au i wanted to do for them but i dont have the energy. mostly for K, as usual~
> 
> please note: if drunk sex or sexual encounters while under the influence trigger you in any way please do not read. it is not gone into in detail but it is heavily implied

Shouyou wakes with a dull, twinging ache that sits heavy and uncomfortable at the base of his skull. It’s the kind of tension headache he associates with sweet wine -- the kind he only ever drinks when he’s with Yachi.

And it’s Yachi whose arm he assumes is hanging warm and heavy over his side, but then she’s much smaller and lighter than this. Her fingers are tapered and slender, but these are thicker, more crooked with bony knuckles. There’s a shift and a sleepy, somewhat pained groan coming from behind him, and the fact that he so suddenly _knows_ this is not Yachi settles hot and low in his stomach, twisted with the empty hunger ache he always feels after a night of drinking.

Slowly Shouyou turns, careful not to jostle the arm too far off of him, the static rustle of the sheets seeming too loud in the otherwise quiet lull of what seems to be early morning. He isn’t sure which room he’s in, until he notices some of the posters hanging on the wall, the clear plastic chair littered with bright and colorful stickers at the desk in the corner, Yachi’s books and notes piled neatly on the lacquered white surface.

Shouyou turns and settles against the pillow, re-situates the limp arm to drape over his other side this time, and he resists the urge to push at the tangled curtain of hair concealing half of the face in front of him. Instead he rests the side of his jaw on his hands, wills them not to move of their own accord.

“Kenma,” Shouyou whispers, somewhat in awe, his tone unsure of whether or not it intends to wake or just quietly observe.

Kenma blinks awake, squinting as if the mild hue of gold streaming in from behind Yachi’s curtains offends him, and when his eyes land on Shouyou’s very near face Shouyou has the pleasure of watching the way his cheeks turn a pretty shade of deep red. Even the bridge of his nose looks hot-- feverish almost, like he shouldn’t need the thin blankets that he snuggles even deeper beneath.

“Hi,” Shouyou murmurs, on the precipice of a smile that threatens to break his entire face. Even still, the hope that fills his chest is threaded through with fear -- Shouyou watches Kenma’s face carefully, closely. He doesn’t _seem_  uncomfortable, but he’s good at hiding it sometimes.

“What time is it?” Kenma says, his voice hoarse and low -- intimate, even, something Shouyou’s only ever heard from him late at night or in the mornings over the phone.

“Dunno,” Shouyou says, watching the way Kenma pushes his hair away from his forehead as he rubs tiredly at his eyes.

Shouyou is expecting Kenma to sit up, to get ready to leave. He doesn’t have a frame of reference for this kind of moment, other than the few times things _have_  happened between them that never seem to have the time to settle afterward. There always seems to be someone or something waiting for them -- friends, family, school.

Because Shouyou is watching Kenma so closely he notices the way Kenma’s eyes hone in on an area somewhere around Shouyou’s neck. Kenma lifts his hand and presses into the skin with his thumb, and Shouyou yelps, surprised by the tender ache that throbs.

“Fuck,” Kenma whispers, more to himself than anything, and Shouyou isn’t sure what that means in this context.

“Is this bad?” Shouyou asks, beginning to panic, wondering if Yachi even knows they’re in her room together. “Is it bad we did this?”

Kenma pulls his hand back, and with it seems to pull the rest of himself inward. He eyes Shouyou warily and says, “Do you know what we did?”

It seems like an odd question, though Shouyou figures it’s an important one, so he pulls up pieces of memories and surprises himself with how sharp and vivid they are so suddenly. The heavy way Kenma was breathing, right into his ear. The way he moaned into Shouyou’s neck, the way his voice was somehow impossibly deeper. Even the inexpert, trembling way he rocked against Shouyou’s bare hip, and the way Shouyou’s own hands shook as he clutched at whatever part of him he could reach.

Shouyou’s face must be telling, because Kenma’s mouth tilts into something like a smirk, and he says, “This is the quietest I think I’ve ever seen you.”

“Shut up,” Shouyou murmurs, blushing and pushing futilely at Kenma’s thin, bare chest. He’s got a mole, right to the left of his nipple, and Shouyou swipes his thumb over it, ignoring the way his neck goes hot at remembering putting his mouth there.

Kenma relaxes then, lays his head back down onto the pillow, his hair splaying out prettily, despite it still being somewhat of a tangled mess. It’s much longer than Shouyou remembers it being the last time he saw him in person, the tips still dipped in what remains of the gold from high school, but the roots dark and long. Shouyou is hit with a sudden, powerful memory of burying his nose in the darker parts of Kenma’s hair, and remembering the very distinct and explicitly personal scent of it.

Kenma licks his lower lip, blinks up at Shouyou and says, “You said that last night, too. You held your hand over my mouth.”

Shouyou does remember this. He sits up on an elbow as he rubs a fist over his eyes and mumbles, “I’m sorry.”

Kenma shakes his head, his mouth twisting into one of those unexpectedly bright smiles that show off the pointed parts of his teeth-- the ones that always make Shouyou feel weak.

“Don’t be,” Kenma says, “I liked it.”

Shouyou makes a small, helpless noise in the back of his throat, and has to stop himself from surging forward, pushing Kenma’s head back by the curve of his jaw until his mouth is open and seeking his the way it was last night. He remembers holding his palm over his mouth, yes, but what he remembers more is letting it fall away, watching Kenma hover over him with his mouth slack and wet, his lips somehow pinker than before.

Kenma seems unsettled by Shouyou’s retreat into his own head, like the fact he isn’t babbling off nonsense is concerning, and he lifts a hand up to twist a bright strand of Shouyou’s hair around his finger. He tugs a little, and Shouyou relaxes quickly, flopping down and lying at an angle on Yachi’s futon mattress, pillowing his chin onto his hands. The throbbing headache is still there, but it’s muted somehow, less important.

It’s Kenma’s turn to go quiet, though Shouyou is used to this by now. He says what he always does, as honest as he knows how to be, because Kenma once told him it’s why he feels so comfortable around him.

“What are you thinking?” he asks.

“You need a haircut,” Kenma mumbles.

Shouyou frowns, says, “I do not!”

Kenma giggles a little, his voice still a bit hoarse but more liquid than before, calmer. He tugs on an entirely new strand of Shouyou’s hair, examining the length and the innate curl of it, the way it hugs his finger.

“I kind of like it like this,” Kenma says quietly.

“Can I kiss you yet?” Shouyou whispers, suddenly afraid of rejection or crossing a boundary they haven’t discussed, even though they’ve kissed before. It’s the one thing they know how to do, but somehow _now_  it feels different.

Kenma snorts, which Shouyou frowns at, and then says, “My mouth feels like something died in it, but you don’t really have to ask.”

Shouyou fumbles forwards, reaching out and pulling on Kenma’s long, elegant neck as he pushes an embarrassing noise into his mouth.

“Sorry,” Shouyou says after, out of breath as he pulls back and presses his forehead to Kenma’s. He squeezes his eyes shut, his heart now racing.

“Why are you apologizing?” Kenma asks him, wrapping his fingers gently around Shouyou’s forearm and leaving them there -- not tugging or moving, just holding.

“I thought this would be more… special,” Shouyou admits, his cheeks going hot at the admission.

He’s pictured watching Kenma come in his arms for so long he’s almost built a story around it in his head. Hearing it over the phone is somehow different-- separate, even though Kenma seems to think otherwise. Shouyou remembers it from last night, remembers the way his eyes seemed brighter, the broken crack in his voice as he pushed forward and pressed his face into the crook of Shouyou’s neck. If it were up to Shouyou he’d be on a bed of rose petals and and lavished for hours, but Shouyou doesn’t think he’s … good enough to drag it out that long, and Kenma would be embarrassed by that kind of thing anyways. Still, it feels like Shouyou has short-changed them, somehow.

Kenma pulls back a little, looks Shouyou directly in the eye as he says, “I stayed with you in a room of someone I barely know and I’m comfortable here. I think that’s kind of special.”

Shouyou whimpers from the overwhelming rush of relief, and then rolls them both over and pins Kenma down, the sheets tangling around their legs. Shouyou kisses Kenma with probably far too much enthusiasm, having not had much practice before Kenma made it known that this was a thing they should be doing-- and usually he knowingly holds back because of this, but he can’t do it now. Now, when Kenma opens his mouth, Shouyou slides his tongue along Kenma’s and clutches at the side of his jaw as though it might keep his mouth held open for longer, like they could kiss forever without stopping.

They are both startled apart by a sudden shriek that gets muffled quickly after it begins, and then a soft, familiar voice says, “I’m sorry, oh god, I’m sorry. I need my purse, just-- I won’t look.”

Shouyou sits bolt upright and rigid, like a gopher yanked unceremoniously out of his warm hovel, still straddling Kenma’s hips. He turns to watch Yachi stumble through the mess of her own bedroom to get to whatever it is she needs. Kenma, meanwhile, is wrestling the pillow out from under his own head to hide beneath it, holding it over his face.

Staying stunned still, Shouyou watches as Yachi trips a few times on her way out after finding her purse, using it to shield the side of her face closest to them, and then leaving, sliding the door shut as quietly as she can.

Impulsively, and without thinking much, Shouyou shouts after her, “It’s not what it looks like!”

Kenma throws the pillow he’d been covering his face with up at Shouyou and frowns as he says, “What is it, then?”

“I don’t know,” Shouyou mumbles guiltily, and sits back to give Kenma the space to fix the newly matted mess his hair has become over his face.

In doing so he glances down the length of Kenma’s chest, his belly, and then to the side, where there is a significantly darker patch of pink on the sheets beneath them.

“I think we’ve ruined Yachi’s bed,” Shouyou says mournfully.

Kenma pushes Shouyou off of him towards the side, and they both wordlessly stumble up from the futon mattress to begin searching for their clothes. Shouyou finds his boxers and realizes with no small amount of shame that they were one of the things Yachi tripped over.

Kenma sits back on the edge of the futon, staring intently down at his phone. He tries and fails a few times at tucking his hair behind his ears, but it’s too long and heavy now, so he opts instead to pull it back into a low, messy ponytail with a loose black tie he'd had sitting around his wrist.

Only half-dressed, Shouyou flops down next to him on the mattress, resolute and nervous and still brimming on the high of every intimate detail he remembers. As confidently as he can muster, he says, “I want us to be something.”

Kenma glances up at him sideways, then back down to his phone to lock it and put it down.

“We already are something.”

“More than that!” Shouyou replies fiercely.

Kenma is quick to lean in, kissing gently at the corner of Shouyou’s mouth

“More than _that?_ ” Kenma asks, lifting an amused eyebrow.

Shouyou stops and thinks-- pushes the image of dark rooted hair stuck wet to his temples and neck from sweat-- and comes up dry.

“I don’t… know,” he mumbles.

Kenma, somehow, looks even more fond.

“Get up, take the sheets off and offer to wash them,” Kenma commands, shoving Shouyou’s shorts into his lap before getting up off the futon himself

“That’s embarrassing!” Shouyou calls after him.

Kenma’s focus is back down at his phone now, and he offhandedly says, “She’s your best friend, isn’t she?”

Shouyou gets up, pausing from unhooking a corner of the sheet from the mattress and approaching Kenma from behind.

“I thought _you_  were--”

“More than that, remember?” Kenma mumbles, and Shouyou is glad he has his back turned if not to watch the stupid looking grin take over his entire face.

 

 

\--

 

  
Shouyou emerges from Yachi’s room holding a balled up wad of her pink, floral accented sheets, with Kenma trailing silently behind him. Shouyou does his best not to look like a criminal approaching the gallows, but by the way Kuroo immediately bursts out into obnoxious laughter he must have failed.

“I’ll wash them,” Shouyou announces, far too loudly. Even Kenma flinches, Shouyou notices out of the corner of his eye, which prompts a quiet utter of, “Sorry.”

Kuroo looks like it’s physically painful for him to keep from laughing. He is so wildly out of place, sitting cross legged on the tatami mats in Yachi’s living room, surrounded by girls all wearing comfy and cute pajamas. It takes Shouyou a moment to notice his nails are painted, the same minty-green color as Yachi’s. Even so, he leans back with his usual air of confidence and gives Shouyou a searing once over. It’s then Shouyou remembers the bruise Kenma left on his neck, and quickly goes incriminatingly hot all over.

Yachi, when Shouyou pulls his gaze from Kuroo’s highly amused face, doesn’t look even remotely angry. So, there’s that.

“I was going to do laundry today anyway,” she says politely, shushing her roommate who immediately questions this fact.

“Okay. Good,” Shouyou says, taking a deep breath before glancing back at Kenma. He catches the end of Kenma flicking Kuroo off, and then the subsequent bark of laughter from Kuroo that follows it.

Shouyou can’t bring himself to be upset over the teasing. It’s wholly expected, firstly, but Kuroo sacrificed his own weekend off to bring Kenma here. Shouyou is thankful for that.

“Bye,” Shouyou says, to Kenma as he hoists his backpack up onto one shoulder. He wants to kiss him, so bad it pulls an ache through the entire length of his body, but he won’t. He never intends to make Kenma uncomfortable. Even if Kenma says sometimes he’s a little too careful.

“Check your phone,” Kenma says, quietly enough that only Shouyou will hear, gesturing with his chin back into the room where the rest of Shouyou’s stuff lies in a mess with Yachi’s.

Kuroo says goodbye to the girls and then rounds on Shouyou, squeezing his shoulder.

“‘Bout time,” Kuroo murmurs, before leading a completely phone-attentive Kenma out of Yachi’s apartment.

Shouyou collapses next to Yachi and her surrounding pile of pillows once they’re gone, and he groans happily as he presses his face into her shoulder.

She pats his head lovingly, mussing up his hair, and says nothing except for, “I have a _lot_ of laundry you’re going to be doing.”

 

  
\--

 

  
_(From: Kenma♥_   
_\--i’m getting my own place next month. come over for a while, maybe more than just one night... xo)_

 

 

 


End file.
